JH Pierneef: Master of the South African Landscape

Although Anton van Wouw was a driving force in his life and developing career, it was another prominent artist and family friend, Frans Oerder (1867-1944), who encouraged Pierneef to concentrate on cultivating a unique indigenous artistic style that would capture the distinct qualities of sunlight on the rugged terrain and plains of this country. In time Pierneef came to grasp what these artists meant by these statements. With their Dutch-trained backgrounds, they grappled with the characteristics of the new environment, as they were accustomed to the generally more forgiving scenery of overcast European landscapes. This artistic approach was far removed from the harshness of light found in the ever-changing weather of the Transvaal - its dramatic cloud formations and the light and shadows they cast, the searing, unescapable sunlight, and its often overbearing impact on the tonal colour variations on the landscape. While his older, European contemporaries struggled with this, Pierneef came to master a visual vocabulary that defined this landscape and its light, and was lauded for his development of a painterly language unique to this environment. There is indeed no mistaking the South African landscape in a painting by JH Pierneef.

Van Wouw and Oerder encouraged the younger Pierneef to work towards his first solo exhibition which took place in October 1913 at the publishers JH de Bussy in Pretoria. His work was well received by the public and critics alike, and this confirmed his growing importance and broadening popularity as an emerging artist and rising star.

It is well-known that in the early years, after his first exhibition, Pierneef regularly went on drawing and painting excursions beyond the outskirts of Pretoria where he delighted in botanising, illustratively capturing the countryside, and documenting examples of the early Transvaal vernacular architecture. Apart from his interest in particular landscape elements such as cloud formations, trees and mountainous terrains, this painting of a farmhouse is a striking example of the artist's life-long interest in architectural structures within a landscape setting.

This elegant, early painting illustrates such a trip, to the north east of Pretoria towards Roodeplaat ('Rooiplaat', as the Pienaars River and dam area was known), called Derdepoort. This was an area the artist and his godfather, Van Wouw, often frequented. It was a water-rich area with established farms and cultivated farmlands as described by the verdant landscape surrounding the structure in this composition.

The subject depicted in this painting was obviously a favourite of the artist's, and he produced at least three versions of the scene, including two graphics:

Having had the opportunity to travel to Europe, the young Pierneef was familiar with the prevailing styles and techniques of the leading European avant-garde, including the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and the Cubists. At this early stage of his career, Pierneef was exploring different stylistic techniques as seen in the vigorous impasto layers of paint which give texture to the structure of the farmhouse, where the resulting painting is something akin to an impressionistic rendering.

Two other significant compositional elements are the swathes of clouds encompassing the background and the imposing tree to the left, in all probability a blue gum. Much attention was given to the texture of the leaves of this tree which he painted in bursts of tentative, short streaks. But, apart from slight emphasis on the tree trunk and branches and the overall structure of the farmhouse, Pierneef's sweeping impressionistic approach towards the scene creates a sense of visual anticipation, offset by an abiding sense of calm in this harmonious composition.